Blog entry 1

After 3 weeks of studying chemical product design, I feel it is time for an update on what I have learnt. Within these 3 weeks, I have learnt about chemical product classification, pain points in products and reverse engineering. On top of that I have started a project of my own to design a chemical product.

Firstly lets discuss what I have learnt. Chemical products are primarily classified into 4 categories: commodities, micro-structured, molecular and chemical products. To briefly touch on each, commodities refer to products make in large quantities through reactions and unit operations. Micro-structured products refer to products which serve a certain purpose usually a niche. Molecular products are small in size hence its name and mostly discovered through research. Finally chemical products are made for personal convenience. 

As for the pain points, they are specific problems faced when using products or services which may cause frustration. Some examples of pain points which may be relatable to some of you are bluetooth on wireless earbuds not working as smoothly causing breakage in audio being played or the design of the latest iphone being sharp around the edges making it uncomfortable to hold.

Secondly, my group and I had to brainstorm ideas for a chemical product which solves a pain point. After much deliberation we decided to design and create a machine which extracts zest from citrus skin which is usually a waste product.

After deciding on an idea, we were tasked to do literature reviews on parts of our design which use scientific theories. At first I did not see the point of conducting literature reviews, however, after completing them I understand why we had to do them. Literature reviews help fill in the gaps of knowledge we did not know we lack.

Lastly I want to share my thoughts on the practical I did on reverse engineering. In the practical we had to examine a coffee machine and after that replicate one of its mechanisms which allowed water to flow upwards without the use of a pump.